Beautiful Like A Butterfly
by TheUSofCalzona
Summary: The first day after Callie and Arizona's break up. Season 6 Story


A/N - Had this on my LJ and wanted to bring it over!

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Arizona Robbins laid in her queen sized bed, alone in her apartment. The cool sheets soothed her nude body. Wrapping themselves around her as if they were trying to ease the ache in her heart. She felt hungover, her head pounding and her stomach upset. She knew neither aspirin or Saltines would repair her today though.

12 hours 43 minuets ago she had suffered one of the hardest blows of her life. 12 hours and 43 minuets she ended a year long love affair with the woman she thought might have been the one. She had never believed in the one before, it was like a unicorn or the yeti to her. Often spoke about but never seen.

She eased herself up to a sitting potion, her sheets falling down to her waist. She looked around the room, a layer of dust over almost everything. Before last night she hadn't been here in close to a month. She looked at the cherry wood that made up her bedroom set, she looked at the TV that hung on the wall, she looked at it all and didn't feel an attachment to any of it. She missed Callie's warm bedroom, Callie's bed, Callie's arms.

She slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet hitting the cold hard wood floors. She slowly stood up, testing her quivering legs. When she was sure she wouldn't topple over she grabbed her robe and wrapped the soft cotton around herself.

As she stepped into the living room, she took a moment to take the room in. Book shelves were carved into the walls, filled to the brim with medical texts, history and art books, fiction and non fiction alike. She had missed her books, they were her dearest friends growing up. She walked over to a section and ran her finger tips over the spines, almost as if she were caressing a long forgotten lover.

There was an oversized cloth chair by the window, she loved sitting for hours in that chair in her teenage years and reading. The subject of the book didn't matter as much, she's read anything. Her mother, who herself had a Ph.D in English lit, and she would talk for hours about their books. It was something normal in a world that was ever changing for her.

Her father was an office in the United States Marine Corps, growing up she had a hard time bonding with kids only to leave soon after. The books became her friends, the talks with her mother and younger brother Danny became the thing that kept her from feeling alone.

Slowly she walked over to the fireplace mantle. A folded flag, a photo of her brother and father in uniform and a family photo, along with two sets of dog tags, her grandfather's and her brother's took up that space. She lifted the photo of her bother and father and kissed each man's cheek.

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell." Arizona whispered, she had heard the Edna St. Vincent Millay quote once and it had stayed with her all these years. She carefully placed the photo back on the mantle, going to the kitchen.

She was grateful she still had coffee here. She made a pot and went to the fridge to get some ice cream. She knew it would be freezer burned but she dished herself a bowl anyway. She sat at her kitchen table, drinking her coffee and eating her ice cream. She hadn't felt this alone since her brother's death.

She thought back to that cold Boston morning, thought back to the moments before she had gotten the news.

She had been in bed with her girlfriend, a nurse from the PICU. They had been cuddling and reading the Sunday paper in sections together. Both had the day off and they had been thinking about going to a Red Sox game that night if the weather held. When Arizona's phone rang she had answered it with a laugh, though the tone of her father's voice sobered her quickly. She had been given the news in her father's straight forward and blunt manor.

"Danny's dead." She had told her girlfriend. "My kid brother is dead." She hadn't cried, screamed or begged it to have been her instead. She calmly got out of their bed, gone to her laptop and booked the flight that would take her home. She called work and told them she needed two weeks off, all without looking at the woman in her bed. She broke up with her after her bed was packed and she was showered and dressed. She had done it in a curl way, though at the time she was too numb to care.

She thought back to how badly she had ended that relationship. Thought how she broke up because she had been hurt and scared. She was never good at expressing her feelings, not her real feelings that were deep and buried.

She stood up quickly, almost as if she shake off her thoughts of the past. She washed and hand dried her dishes, putting them back in their places. She placed both hands flat on the counter, trying to steady her thoughts more than her body. She closed her eyes and let one single tear roll down her cheek before brushing it's trail away.

Going back to the living room she sat down and pulled out a gift from her brother, something she hand't touched in months; a 1720 reproduction of a Stradivarius violin. Her brother had saved the $5,000 without telling her, giving it to her the day she finished medical school.

She unlocked the case and popped it open, slowly pulling the bow out and setting it aside before pulling out the violin. She held it in her hands for a moment, closing her eyes a second. She had started playing at a young age, her father had played the fiddle since 13, he gave her lessons until she needed to be taught by someone better.

At 17 she was offered a spot at The New England Conservatory Of Music and had gone there, doing the joint program with Harvard so she could do a double major in music and pre med. She could have given up her dream of being a doctor to play but her love of medicine was too great, too over powering.

She rosined her bow and started to play a song from memory. It took her only a second to get her form and the precise movements back she needed. She closed her eyes as she played, thinking of all the times she had done this over the years, all the hours she practiced. Her fingers no longer bore the calluses that protected them and she had to stop after a half an hour.

Packing everything away she walked to her laptop and checked her mail. She showered and dressed for work. She had a packed day today, she was grateful that she would be going for 8 hours straight, less time to think of Calliope.

She changed into her scrubs and lap coat at the hospital, tying the laces on her wheelies in double knots before she walked out. She glided down the hall, trying to get herself in the right frame of mind. She was thankful she didn't see Callie on her way to the PED'S floor, nor on her way to the OR.

"She's beautiful like a butterfly." Callie whispered to Mark, both had snuck into the empty galley to watch Arizona work. She couldn't be too far from her former lover, even if the pain was like putting your hand on a hot stove. Her brain was telling her to pull away but her body refused.

Mark just put his arm around Callie, his eyes were glued on the woman on the other side of the table, Lexie Grey was assisting. "Yeah, she is." He whispered.


End file.
